Like a guy down on his luck, the iPhone 5 has spent the past few months not being able to get a date. A release date, that is. But that’s changed now that we’re entering that stretch of the calendar year in which the gig is up by default: Apple doesn’t introduce new products any later than September and doesn’t put them on sale any later than October, meaning you’ll get yours ASAP. So those of you who bypassed the Verizon iPhone 4 for the sake of waiting for the iPhone 5, while having gotten shafted temporarily in the deal, will finally get to cash in on your plans. But for those still sticking it out with other carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile, there’s no immediate end in sight. In fact the odds are good that you’ll need to wait until the iPhone 6 before Apple finds its way onto either of the nation’s second-tier major carriers, each for a different practical reason.

Each U.S. carrier has built its own, at least partially incompatible network. The chasm between AT&T’s GSM and Verizon’s CDMA is perhaps the widest, but Apple already managed to bridge that gap by offering two different iPhone 4 hardware models. Whether the iPhone 5 gets released as a single hybrid model for the two carriers or continues to come in multiple network flavors remains to be revealed. But T-Mobile and Sprint are different stories. It’s not that their networks are necessarily any more difficult for Apple to incorporate into the iPhone. But in the case of Sprint, the carrier is so tied to 4G that it might not be able to get away with offering the iPhone 5 unless it includes 4G networking. And not the 4G LTE which Verizon and AT&T keep touting…

Instead, Sprint has long been pushing its own slower, incompatible version of 4G networking. Unless Apple has constructed a separate iPhone 5 model for Sprint’s 4G, the odds are that Sprint won’t have the iPhone until the iPhone 6. That’s not the news which Sprint users want to hear, but it’s the sobering reality of carrier and network politics. And that’s nothing compared to what T-Mobile users are facing. It appeared that they were set to get the iPhone 5 by default as AT&T was planning to scoop up T-Mobile in a mega merger. That would clear away any carrier politics and open the door to a T-Mobile iPhone 5 ASAP. But now there’s been doubt cast over the merger prospects thanks to the recent stock market downturn. And while T-Mobile is in limbo, the odds of it going out and striking its own iPhone 5 deal with Apple feel remote. And that’s on top of T-Mobile’s own 4G incompatibility issues. With the “will they or won’t they” nature of the merger perhaps taking some time to finally settle, it feels like T-Mobile is also more likely to end up with the iPhone 6. Of course this assumes that the two smaller carriers want the iPhone at all, but there are various reasons why they’ll want it long term…

If the T-Mobile merger does go through, Sprint will instantly become the smallest U.S. carrier as well as the only one not in line for the iPhone. That alone should be enough to motivate Sprint to get to the bargaining table with Apple, if it’s not there already. The day-one arrival of the iPhone 5 on Verizon alongside AT&T will trigger customers on all the U.S. carriers to strongly consider the Verizon iPhone 5. Sprint doesn’t need the headache of losing its own customers to Verizon over the iPhone; it was bad enough losing customers to AT&T for the same reason over the past four years. So if Sprint can’t get the iPhone lined up within the iPhone 5 era for political or network reasons, a Sprint iPhone 6 seems an eventuality.

And then there’s the prospect of the two carriers continuing to marry themselves to the Android platform. While Android based phones have sold very well combined, each carrier’s individual Android-based flagship phone has been thoroughly outsold by AT&T’s flagship iPhone 4. Verizon already decided it couldn’t achieve the growth it wanted without the iPhone, as its own Droid phone was trailing the AT&T iPhone by a five to two sales ratio. And if Verizon feels like it can’t grow without the iPhone, then the smaller Sprint and T-Mobile must feel the same way. Adding the iPhone 5, or iPhone 6 as may be the case, doesn’t mean they have to cancel their current Android offerings.

And with the current chaos taking place on the rival Android platform, both Sprint and T-Mobile must be viewing the iPhone as a contrast in stability. Android manufacturers HTC and Samsung are losing their underwear in the courts thanks to prolonged patent wars and may not ultimately be a part of the Android collective once it’s all said and done. Google just acquired Android manufacturer Motorola Mobility in an attempt to stabilize the platform. With carriers now facing the prospect of various Android hardware models unexpectedly coming and going in the near future, the iPhone represents a complete 180: Apple controls the OS and the hardware, which means that once the iPhone 5 arrives the carriers can bank on having at least a year to promote it. That goes for the iPhone 6 as well, if that’s the late entry point which Sprint and T-Mobile end up taking. Either way, the Verizon iPhone 5 (along with the “old standby” AT&T iPhone 6) will be there as options in the mean time. 

Source - [ beatweek.com ]